


a not-so-distant memory

by hellynz



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: DWFicExchange, Team Bonding, this takes place at christmas for some reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 21:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19912204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellynz/pseuds/hellynz
Summary: She knows her eyes are wide with - something. She isn’t quite sure if it’s fear or hope. Because itisDonna Noble, or Donna Temple-Noble by this point, standing right in front of her, and she's so incredibly thrilled to see her. But worry coils in her stomach as well.





	a not-so-distant memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [timeladyleo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeladyleo/gifts).



> For timeladyleo for the Doctor Who Fic Exchange! She listed Donna and Thirteen in her characters she loves and my brain said YES. Hope you enjoy!

The Doctor loves Earth culture, and more than that she is incredibly fond of her friends. Most of the time, for most of the humans she travels with, she’d do anything they asked (in between the adventures she gets to dictate and control).

And while she does enjoy exploring towns and appreciates almost all areas of the Earth, the Doctor is not an enormous fan of 21st century malls. There’s something strange about the way this generation of humans advertised to each other, something that both forced itself into her vision and made her go almost numb with boredom at the same time.

So when, on their human timeline that they insist on keeping up - and she gets it, she does, she understands that humans live linearly, but consistency is _boring_ \- nears Christmas, and they ask if she wants to go shopping with them, she considers saying no. But the idea of being voluntarily alone pounds at the back of her head, pricks into her vision, and she doesn’t consider it for more than a few seconds.

Thus, the Doctor finds herself in a mall.

Ryan heads off to an electronics store housing hundreds of items the Doctor could dismantle and reassemble in twenty minutes. Yaz ends up with the sporting goods, and the Doctor gets spoken to for trying to see which ball bounces the highest.

She loses track of Graham before she can bother him - thinks he probably ditched her on purpose because he knew she'd cause trouble. She doesn’t necessarily blame him, but she also doesn’t let herself think about it too much.

Bored, bored, bored, but her friends were having fun, and there was a fountain in the middle of the food court with lights that were supposed to change color but didn’t seem to be doing it at the moment and wouldn’t it be cool if they also flashed in time to the music that was playing-

She is elbows deep in the water, hanging over the edge with her sonic extended, when she hears a familiar voice behind her.

“What is that sound, it’s giving me a splitting headache, I swear, Christmas is bad enough without that noise going off.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Me neither.”

“Guess you’re losing it, love.”

“Oi, girls, you’re supposed to be on my side. And how can you not hear that, it’s this buzzing, it’s driving me absolutely mad-”

The conversation between Donna Noble, her husband, and her two daughters stops when the father’s gaze lands on the Doctor. A strange blonde woman in a weird outfit, sleeves damp and haphazardly rolled up, staring at them.

She knows her eyes are wide with - something. She isn’t quite sure if it’s fear or hope. Because it _is_ Donna Noble, or Donna Temple-Noble by this point, standing right in front of her, and she's so incredibly thrilled to see her. But worry coils in her stomach as well. And yet she cannot make herself turn and run. Maybe with a new face and a thousand years between them, maybe this will be okay?

Her hearts ache with the possibility. They also ache with the fear that has begun to eat away at her, trying to force her to leave.

She won’t leave. Not yet, not till she knows.

Shaun gives her a once over and smiles a little, eyes worried, shifting his weight. “Can I help you?”

The Doctor jumped. “Oh! No,” she said, clapping her hands together and wincing at the spray of water that flew from them. “I mean, sorry, I just overhead, and I - I heard that noise, it was bothering me too. You aren’t crazy,” she added with a nervous grin towards Donna, hearts fluttering, trying to push the genuine joy from her face.

Donna nodded at her, face going smug. “Thank you, finally someone who doesn’t have cotton stuffed in their ears.”

One of the girls, the taller one with tan skin and dark brown hair that flashed a little red in direct light, tugged at Donna’s arm. “Mum, you said we could get ice cream!”

“Alright, alright,” she said, shaking her daughter off and then reaching to tickle her under the arm. “Would you take them over there, love? I want to go through our list again.”

They trailed off slowly, both girls yelling excitedly about ice cream, and the Doctor smiles over at Donna, trying to push away her nerves yet again. “Cute kids.”

Donna scoffs. “Sometimes. Most of the time, really, Christmas is just a lot.”

Shifting her body to lean against the side of the fountain, Donna pulls out a list and begins to peruse it, but her gaze flickers back over to the Doctor.

Who, meanwhile, is still standing, frozen, hands shoved in her pockets, unsure. It's not like she has anything to talk about - she knows she's still socially awkward which means her small talk is bad, and of course she can't talk about anything from their past together.

She's almost lost herself to her own thoughts when Donna’s eyes flicker over again, and she lowers the list with a sigh. “Do I know you?”

“Don’t think so,” the Doctor says, too fast, and yes, this is absolutely a bad idea, but it's _her best mate_.

Donna hums, but doesn’t lift her list again. “I just could’ve sworn I’ve seen you before.”

The Doctor shrugged, her hands swinging out to her sides and coming to clasp in front of her. With nerves thudding in her chest, she said “just one of those faces.”

“But not really your face, it’s just your eyes. I feel like I’ve seen your eyes before.”

The fear begins to win over the hope. _Redirect, change the subject, move on. No- it’s safer to just walk away._

And so, with a heavy heart, she starts to. “Oh, well, don’t recognize you, sorry! I’m, uh- I’ll be off. Good luck, happy Christmas.”

The Doctor let her gaze linger on her best friend for just a bit too long. She doesn’t want to walk away, wants nothing more than to bring Donna along with her, whisk her back onto the TARDIS and into the universe. But she turns and begins to move.

“Doctor.”

She freezes, whirling on one heel to face Donna again. She stands with one hand pressed to her forehead, eyes wide, flickering back and forth as if trying to read something flashing by in the air in front of her. “Oh, Doctor, it’s you, isn’t it?”

Back ramrod straight, she shakes her head quickly. “Doctor? I’m not a doctor, who is a doctor, not me I swear-”

“No, it is you,” Donna gasped, and then winced, the knuckles on her hand going white.

Moving quickly, the Doctor takes three steps forward and reaches out, grabbing Donna’s biceps and squeezing gently. “Hang on, Donna, don’t focus too hard, okay? Don’t think about it-”

“You made me forget,” she whispered, her voice low and betrayed, tears forming in her eyes. “You did, you took it out and left me behind and now- oh, it hurts.”

“Donna, I'm so sorry, but listen to me,” the Doctor said, forcing her words firm. “Stop trying to remember. Stop thinking about it.”

“Oh, but how can I when you’re right here?” And suddenly she pitched forward, her arms snaking out around the Doctor’s neck and her face pressing into her shoulder. “I’ve missed you so much you stupid spaceman, how have you survived without me, I can't-"

With a whimper she’d deny, the Doctor hugged her back, squeezing around Donna’s waist and feeling as if she might float away if she ever stopped. All of the social anxiety, all of the hesitance to get too physical with her friends flies out the window, and all she ever wants to do was stand in Donna’s arms, hugging her best friend.

"Not easily," she whispers, clearing her throat. "I was useless without you. Had to change my whole face to recover."

Donna chuckles, and leans like she might step away and say something. But then she stiffens. “Ow- I- Doctor Doc- Doctor-”

“Doctor?”

Yaz, stepping towards them with Ryan and Graham trailing behind, has a look of confusion that quickly morphs into fear to match the horror the Doctor felt dawning on her own face, Donna’s hands clenching and unclenching in the back of her jacket. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yep! All good, just- hang on, okay? Don’t-” but Donna cuts her off, trying to muffle a groan of pain. The Doctor can feel her jaw clenching as she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.

“Ma’am, do you need help?” 

_Not now, Yaz, not here-_

“Hey!”

The Doctor almost screams, settles for rolling her eyes, panic and annoyance and that same dreaded emptiness thudding in her hearts. _No, no, no not now_ \- but there was nothing she could do. Shaun Temple-Noble was storming at them, the bags he was carrying abandoned in favor of sweeping the younger daughter into his arms, the older one clinging to his side as he strides towards them.

So the Doctor slaps her hands to the sides of Donna’s face and focuses, shoving an apology in along with the _forget, forget, forget, I take it back, I’m sorry, and we’re calm and everything’s fine you’re in a hurry leave now-_

Shaun grabs her nearest forearm and yanks, twisting her away from Donna, and she yelps, a burning snap in her wrist as he begins shouting.

“Get your hands off of my wife, what did you _do_ to her, Donna-” and out of the corner of her eye the Doctor can see Ryan and Yaz surging forward now, Graham raising his arms to hold them back but the same startled anger in his eyes, and Yaz has gone for the badge she keeps in her front left pocket but Ryan looks like he may just start swinging when-

“What’s wrong?” Donna asks, eyes fluttering a bit but steady on her feet, frowning at her husband. “Shaun, what are you doing?”

He stares at her, mouth agape, and finally lets go of the Doctor’s arm as she gives it a gentle tug, wincing at the fresh wave of pain, darting to stand between Shaun and her friends who have just reached her side.

“She- you were- this lady was-” he starts, but Donna shakes her head, reaching out to put her arm around her older daughter.

“Why did you drop the bags? Men, for God’s sake, I don’t know what goes through your mind sometimes, c’mon girls, we’re in a hurry. Let’s get going.”

And as the Doctor steps quietly behind her friends, leading them down the hall and away from the flabbergasted Shaun, Donna continues forward into the rest of her life.

————

“Oww,” the Doctor whines, fighting the urge to pull her hand away as Yaz finishes wrapping her bruised wrist. “I told you I’d be fine without all this-”

“Yeah, yeah, superior biology.” Yaz snaps the first aid kit shut. “Didn’t stop you from trying to steer the TARDIS before it heals. You’ll just make it worse.”

“She’s right, you know,” Graham says from where he’s standing in the kitchen, rifling through the mail.

The Doctor had managed to guide them through the quick hop back to Graham and Ryan’s flat before revealing her injury through a grunt of pain she couldn’t quite suppress, a wince Yaz caught just the tail end of.

“Even you’ve gotta rest sometimes, a proper injury’s a better reason than most,” he finishes, tossing the majority of the letters in the recycling but laying a few on the counter next to the almost-boiling kettle.

“So are you gonna tell us what happened back there?” Ryan asks, blunt as ever, and the Doctor closes her eyes and allows herself a breath.

“Yeah, that was an old friend of mine, is all. She used to travel with me. Hadn’t seen her in awhile.” She slides to the edge of her chair and moves to stand, but Yaz’s hand on her shoulder keeps her down.

“But why was she in pain? And what did you do to her, why’d you touch her head like that?”

The Doctor grins, a slanted smirk that she knows doesn’t really reach her eyes. “You always ask the right questions, Yaz.”

And she considers just telling them, she really does, gives it a good long three seconds to spin around in her brain before she shakes her head. “But don’t worry about it, it’s too complicated. Too long of a story. Boring, really. We should get going, I’ll-”

“Doctor,” Yaz says, her eyes pleading. “That was really scary. I’d like to know the truth.”

“You never really tell us anything about yourself. Don’t you trust us?” Ryan asks, and the Doctor presses her mouth into a thin line, wanting to hug and throttle him all at once.

“Of course I trust you. I trust all of you, I do, I just...” she trails off.

_It hurts to talk about_ , she wants to say. Because it does, it makes her remember being that man again, buried in loss and abandoned. But there is also something stubborn in her. She doesn’t want to tell them because she wants to keep them, her fam, away from everything she’s been before.

But she can’t keep them away if they won’t stop asking.

“You just don’t like to talk about it?” Yaz offers, and the Doctor breaks into a grin and lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Only it wasn’t the escape she thought it was. 

“I don’t think I like that answer, Doc.” Graham carries two mugs into the room and plunks one in front of himself and one in front of the Doctor, gesturing at Ryan to grab the other two. “We’ve been traveling with you for awhile now, and Ryan’s right, we barely know about your past. And that’s all well and good, you’re allowed to have your secrets, but you can’t secret away something that happened in front of us.”

He’s right, and Ryan and Yaz agree with him, and the Doctor knows it. She scrunches up her face, fiddles too hard with her own fingers and makes her wrist ache again.

But secrets bother her too. And she likes that her friends ask questions, that they try to get to the bottom of things.

“So here’s the thing. My people are telepathic, but usually only through touch. And don’t worry,” she says, cutting herself off before they can ask, “I’ve never read any of your minds. I don’t do it without permission. Not really a toucher this time around anyways.”

She sighs and leans backwards, shuffling her feet, wants to move or run or just send them all off to some intergalactic casino where they can focus on something else for a second.

But, she decides, no need to delay. Better quickly than dragging it out. Better now than not at all.

“Anyways, Donna was my best mate. She traveled with me for a long time and actually planned on traveling with me for her whole life, it really suited her, until something happened where basically her tiny human brain was filled with all of the knowledge of a Time- of one of me, of my species, we’re called Time Lords - and she started to short circuit and it was gonna burn her up alive, so I had to use my touch telepathy to erase all of it from her memory, but that included me and all the things we’d done together and the fact that we were friends, so I dropped her back with her mum and gramps and she didn’t remember me anymore so I left and I only got to see her once more from afar.”

It was deadly quiet in the room, but she didn’t let herself look around yet, kept her gaze on the carpet in front of her.

“So I knew that she could never remember me, and that it wasn’t safe for her to even see my old body. I just thought that maybe, because it had been so long and because I have a whole new face, maybe I could talk to her for a minute. I've known a lot of people in my life, and I miss all of them, but she was something special. She changed me, kept me sane. I really, _really_ miss her.” Her smile has gone weak and watery, and she knows but she can’t do anything to change it. “It didn’t work out. I just did a quick second wipe of her mind, took this new me out of it too."

Still quiet in the room. She still doesn’t quite want to risk a glance around, because something like shame has begun to crawl up the back of her throat, and she will not admit that her face is burning if they ask. "But really, I'm fine. Or I will be. Always am, in the end."

"I can see why you didn't wanna tell us," Ryan says, and when his voice is a little muffled she looks up to see he's covered his mouth with one hand. "That was a lot."

Yaz sniffles beside her, and the Doctor practically falls off of the couch reaching forward to grab her hand. "No, no, don't get upset, I'm fine, it's all fine, it was a long time ago, I just- I wasn't expecting to see her, I acted stupid."

"It wasn't stupid," Yaz says, shaking her head and rising, moving towards her pile of gifts.

"She's right, love," Graham says, settling into the spot she vacated with a heavy sigh. "It's not stupid to want to talk to someone you miss, especially someone as important to you as that."

"Oh," the Doctor says, and her hearts feel a little warmer because it isn't confusion or pity in Graham and Ryan's eyes, but a soft understanding, a camaraderie. She clears her throat, blinking to banish even the possibility of tears.

Yaz was walking back over now, having fished a small paper box out of one of her shopping bags. "I think I'm gonna give these out now, even though it isn't Christmas yet. If that's okay." 

Opening it, she lifted out four matching woven bracelets, simple and thin and a dark navy blue. "I wanted to get us all something matching we could wear. If we're gonna be a team we need a uniform, right?"

The Doctor snatched one out of her hands before she could even finish talking and, for the second time that day, felt no awkwardness or tension as she swept her friend into a hug. "Friendship bracelets! I love them, Yaz."

Ryan snorts from behind her. "Friendship bracelets. That's such a Yaz thing to do." But he ignores the glare she shoots him over the Doctor's shoulder and joins the hug too.

And as she hears Graham mutter "oh, alright," and begin to rise from his seat behind them, the Doctor thinks that she really will be okay this time.


End file.
